


Long Live The Dead

by Ashashiral



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alliance prime minister screws Shepard over, Angst, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Normandy Family, Post-Reaper War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28178394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashashiral/pseuds/Ashashiral
Summary: With the war won, there is room for the legend to spread.It is the legend of Shepard, the saviour of the entire galaxy. The only martyr who has ever lived to tell her tale.From this, not an empress will be born but a goddess to all species. All eyes will turn to her, and it will be her hand which will shape the future of all people. She will be in control.The prime minister of the Alliance knows this. She has watched Shepard for years, has evaluated the woman, her temperament and dangerous tendencies. She is a soldier out of control, always has been, always will be. Mutiny, desertion, terrorism, it is all there, on her resumé. And the galaxy will choose to ignore it all.Van Dijk is an old woman. There is no appetite for power left in her, not with her old bones begging for a comfortable seat in the sun. But she knows what needs to be done.A martyr’s place is in a grave.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been haunting me ever since my first ME3 playthrough. And because I love my angst (with happy endings), I would love to share it with you. 
> 
> For all those of you who are a little petty in regards to custom names and appearances: Same.  
> Which is why I don't mention Shepard's first name and I keep her physical appearance obscure.
> 
> Important note: I don't write black and white fics with purely evil antagonists and purely good protagonists. So everyone who's afraid I'll use the Alliance as my convenient scapegoat... I won't.

####  Shepard 

Her limp body collides with the hard, unforgiving metal of a table.  
Voices and cluttering and whirring surround her in a choir of horror as she endures in paralysis and in the presence of Death.  
The weight is being taken from her body, the pressure on her chest and her leg and her belly is being eased. When they remove the bent and broken titanium, when they cut open the carbon fibre shreds around her neck, she should have started to feel better.  
Instead, in her mind drugged by the imminence of its ultimate end, her entire body falls apart.  
Hands coated in latex tug and pull at her relentlessly. Metallic needles force their way through her skin and travel deep into her muscles and flesh.  
Everything is so loud; the commands, the status reports. Yet, it is all far, far away.  
Plastic tubes are being shoved into her nose and her mouth. Oxygen is being pressed into her lungs, and still, she suffocates in agony. No one notices, neither the abrasive hands nor the thundering voices nor the cold, beeping machines.  
Just her, in the dark and quiet swamp of her mind, can feel the itching and burning and collapse of her lungs.  
Her eyes are being opened, one at a time, and they blind her with light until all she can see is white pain. It does not matter. She does not want to see anyway.  
The hands continue to tug and tear. Her spirit screams over the pain as it is not allowed to slip into the warm and comfortable, everlasting darkness. But her body is silent. Silent as God, silent as the Reapers, silent as space.  
Her muscles spasm when they sent electricity through her body, once, twice, thrice, and many times more. The angry beeping of the machines feels worse than the needles inside her flesh. It feels like they plug out her nerves one by one.  
The cybernetics have failed hours ago. Her heart gives in, unable to handle the physical trauma on its own. It pushes on, one beat at a time, but hardly enough to sustain an entire body with the blood flow and oxygen it so desperately needs.  
Her lungs expand at the whim of the machines. Not a single breath is drawn by herself, cannot be drawn by herself. The artificial prolonging of her life is a fight against nature, and it is probably the biggest ‘fuck you’ to death yet.  
The only warm thing in the ice-cold room is the blood that trickles from her nose down her torn-up skin. The rest of her is freezing, is as cold as the rubble they had found her in during a cold night in London.  
Tech is being plugged from her raw and exposed flesh wherever the metal tools find it. Her cheeks, her hip, the calf muscle inside her torn open leg, it all is liberated of the useless weight. It is like plucking parasites, and in a way, it is.  
“Are the comms up yet?” The words… she hears them, but they make no sense. The voice almost tears her eardrum apart and the syllabises topple over each other into an incomprehensible mess. Before she has a chance to rearrange the fragments inside her head, she has long forgotten them.  
“No, doc. We’ve left a message with the control station. They’ll sort it out.”  
“They better will.” The vibration of the baritone resembles the growling of a dog. Something inside her tenses, tenses so much that one of the machines gets angry again.  
Then another one. “Shit, someone check that implant.”  
“It’s offline. Maybe it’s just a harmless flareup of the nervous system.”  
The machines quiet down. Her brain is too busy trying to solve their letter puzzles. Tem. Tem. Tem. Tem.  
The scurrying and scuttling of the busy hands only get worse. More letters formed into too complex words are being thrown around.  
When they cut her open, the pain is… acceptable. Not worse than the rest of her broken, torn up body.  
And still, her eyes fly open. She cannot breathe, cannot understand, but she can see; dazzling neon lights blurry her vision, green and white blurs move alongside her. Her eyes water, she is unable to see more than dancing colours. But she is alive, is she not? That heap of flesh is hardly able to, but it will have to push through once more.  
“More sedatives!” someone shouts. “Jesus Christ.”  
The words are too fast spoken, too complex for her to grasp. But they feel like a warm cushion when she falls back asleep, into warm darkness that does not feel half as endless as the one before.  
Commander Shepard’s heart is the most stubborn thing the surgeon has ever seen. Once it has found its beat and is relieved of the useless weight of the dead cybernetics, it beats on and on and on as if it has forgotten how to ever stop.

####  Kaidan 

“Where is Shepard?” No reply. Words are hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine. The pain inside his left temple stabs into the connection to his implant. It causes his vision to go dark for a second.  
He repeats his question, with more emphasis this time. His tongue – for a moment there – has trouble to tie its way around the phonetics with such vigour. “Where is Shepard?”  
The silence. _Their_ silence. This is the brutality of reality. The mercilessness of spirits and gods alike. This is not justice, not anything but the useless slaughter of good people in a war against supreme machines. His fingers curl into the bedsheet until they turn into a clenched fist. It is the only thing keeping him sane, the pain of the exhausted muscles. He cannot go through this again.  
“Sorry, Kaidan. We’ve got no idea. We don’t even know if she’s alive or dead.” Vega, but something is off. Matter of facts, spoken with such a deadness inside his voice…  
“What’s her last status?”  
Another hesitation.  
Even more silence.  
And then: “Hackett got her to activate the Crucible. But it sounded… she is badly hurt, Kaidan. Contact to her broke off long before the Crucible fired. There was no disturbance signal, no electric noise, just… silence.” Liara. Her voice sounds as heavy as a coffin.  
“Shit,” he mutters and hides his face inside his hands. To breathe. To gather himself. To be a soldier and shake it off until there is time to worry or mourn.  
He cannot. It is all there, right in front of his inner eyes. Her stunning eyes, his blood on her neck, rain-damp hair framing her face as her hand touched his cheek. Dead eyes, her blood pooling around her, torn up armour, broken bones, in front of some Citadel console.  
His hand moves to his mouth and presses it shut. The sob is lost inside his throat, only its heavy exhale is audible. His body trembles, muscle by muscle, as if he is freezing cold. He pinches his nose shut, to keep it all inside. This is neither the time nor place. Even when right now, her fate is haunting him.  
A hand touches his shoulder. “We don’t know, Kaidan. You know she’s a fighter. Everything is possible with her. Perhaps the Reapers have cut the connection to her. We simply don’t know.” The hand wanders across his back until Liara pulls his slumped figure against hers. He lets it happen, just sits there and listens to her soothing voice. Still, he can hear her inner turmoil. “Hackett has ordered a retreat from the Sol system for all ships. Sooner or later, the blast will catch up with us. We don’t even know what that means yet.”  
He wipes the gathered tears in his eyes away and takes a deep breath in. “We’ll be fine.” He turns to look at the young Asari and forces a crooked smile. It is always easier to stay strong for others.  
She pulls him into an even tighter hug, keeps him close for a moment. “It’s over. I can’t believe it. It’s finally over.”  
He gives her a tight squeeze. “Never stop looking for her, okay?” he whispers, desperate for her promise.  
“Never.” Liara pulls back and she manages a small smile, too. They both fake it, but it feels like comradery.  
“Felt so wrong to leave her there.” Vega crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I mean, it’s her ship, right? And we didn’t even try and go back for her.”  
Liara loses her smile and shakes her head. She looks so much smaller than she actually is. Shrunken by worries. “There was no way…”  
“I know. I’m just sayin’ it doesn’t feel right.”  
There is silence again after that. They all agree, but what is there to say?  
To fill the quiet and to free himself from the thought, he whispers: “Feels like Virmire. Ash stayed back, too, and made sure the bomb would go off. Feels like it all over again.” He has to stand up, has to take a deep breath in and force his eyes upwards, towards the ceiling. He will not break. Not now.  
His vision spins as his circulatory desperately struggles to keep him conscious. The previous nights of little sleep, the exhaustion of the battle, the strangling fear for Shepard, for his love and life… How could keep anyone keep cool and collected in his place?  
“Alenko.” Chakwas’ voice reaches his ears. “You have experienced a whiplash injury and a slight concussion. Rest and give your body some time. There is little else we can do anyway.”  
“Sorry, doc, I just…” He sighs deeply and with faked regret. “I need to keep busy.”  
When she replies something, he chooses to ignore it. The consequences which his body suffers – the dizziness, the jabbing pain searing through his implant, the over-acidification of his muscles, the bruises and cuts and stitches – it is all pathetic in comparison to the gruesome sounds of dying warriors and the lament of dead heroes echoing inside his head. Each corridor of thinking ends at the door to the same room: “Is she alive?”  
He pushes his body onward, makes the journey towards the elevator in a haze. People scurry past him left and right; the Normandy has turned into a beehive of scared up crew.  
“Major.” EDI appears right in front of him. “I require your assistance.”  
He stops in his tracks, shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He has lived long enough with crippling migraines to not feel bothered by a tiny concussion-headache. “Just point me at it.”  
“Jeff is steering the Normandy towards a habitable planet. However, calculations show that we might not be able to land fast enough. We have discussed if a biotic field, generated by the group effort of all biotics on board, could absorb some of the impact shock.”  
“It’s going to be-“  
There is not even a flickering before darkness hits them. All of a sudden, the whole ship grows quiet; no humming, no hissing of doors, no whirring of the FTL systems, nothing. Not even a single emergency lamp is on. The only thing which fills the darkest blackness Kaidan has ever witnessed is the shouting and screaming of the staff.  
The descent is fast and uncontrolled. He feels the starship tipping as they tumble into the gravity field of a planet. Not even a second later, something cold and hard collides with him and brings him down to the floor. Like a doll, he is at the mercy of physics. The pain is hot and dull the second his body meets the ground. A weight rests on his already fractured ribs, stealing the breath from his lungs through the unexpected pain.  
Without even thinking about it, in his fear and with his instinct taking over, his biotics dance across his skin, offering a tiny source of light.  
Both him and the weight slide across the floor as the Normandy races towards the surface. His biotics cushion the collision with the wall opposite the elevators.  
Then, the emergency lights turn on, and the eardrum-shattering sound of the alarm drowns out all shouts of the crew.  
He should not have used his biotics after a concussion. He gets his comeuppance almost immediately; the surge pulsing from his implant leaves his entire sensory system confused. His skin feels numb, his vision blurrs once again, there is the taste of matcha tea on his tongue.  
Somehow, he identifies the weight on him as EDIs motionless body. He wants to call out for her and see if she is alright when a tremor of the ship hauls their bodies into the wall. Not even a moment later, He has to witness her cluttering to the ground like a dead piece of metal.  
With this thought still playing in his mind, the Normandy shifts in balance once again. Kaidan recognises it as Joker's last attempt to keep both the drive-core and critical systems alive during the impact.  
There is no time. No time to shout or grab something to hold onto. No time to be afraid or have regrets.  
The impact slams his temples against the floor, leaving him unconscious once again.


	2. Fragments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone!
> 
> It's probably a chapter which would improve if it was a little shorter. Thing is: I had fun writing it, so perhaps someone has fun reading it.  
> We'll get to see some changes in chapter three, so look out for that one in a few days! (It's already written.)
> 
> And thank you so, so much for the kudos and comments. I haven't posted any writing of mine in years, so your kind words are a hell of a motivation. <3  
> (Every writer loves positive attention. Me included! Still, if you have constructive criticism on pacing, iC/OoC, repetitions, weird metaphors,etc for me... Only with constructive criticism I can improve as a writer and your experience with the story.)
> 
> Additional warning: A third party mentions sensitive topics like suicide within the story. Please be aware of this while reading.

####  Shepard 

There are… fragments of consciousness.  
She wakes to the sensation of something wet and rough dabbing across her skin. Not even the hot light all around her can soothe the cold the water leaves behind. The tightness itches and strains her still tender formation of tissue. They might as well use tweezers to crack it all open again.  
Their scrubbing is too harsh. Pink skin comes off, leaves hurting, exposed flesh. She wants to get away, flee from their cruelty, but when her leg twitches, latex hands hold it down.  
Do they know she feels it? Are they aware she is in pain, and still, they go on and on? Her arm burns, burns like they have set her on fire. This is not right. How can this be right?   
The sponge is coarse, unpleasant. Their rubbing turns it all sore, cause her to focus on her body and its cries for relief.  
It is where the warm rays dry the water, though. This is where tiny teeth of desert-ghosts skratch across her. This is where an all-encompassing agony spreads like desert drought.  
The more dryiness she feels straining her skin, the less clouded her existence becomes. Distinctive pain means she is not as good as dead. Distinctive pain means she is still very much alive.   
With the realisation, there appears a crushing weight on top of her chest. She is trapped underneath it, cannot breathe against it. Her lungs cannot expand and deflate on their own accord. The weight is too heavy. Her own rhythm of breath has been replaced by an artificial pace. A pace which does not accommodate fear.  
She chokes on her realisation: She cannot breathe. She cannot breathe, no matter how hard she tries, and suddenly, she is back, in space, floating, adrift, burning up in the atmosphere as her air supply runs dry. The spinning planet, the rubble which hits her, the hands which grab for the broken part of her suite. She is back there, back where she died, alone, lost, suffocating as she burnt.  
Several times, she cramps around the plastic tube inside her throat, tries to spasm it out as she tries to inhale the pure air around her.  
All of a sudden, the air flows, through her nose, through her mouth as she sucks it all in, as much as she can get, greedily. The plastic stays, does not move, not even when her exhale turns into a violent cough.  
The soft beeping of machines turns into a shattering noise. Their screeching alarms whoever is in the room with her; feet move fast, the cold sponges are gone.  
Warm fingers caress her forehead and her hair, pull her back from space, back into loving arms. Words are being said; she does not understand them.  
Her body does not obey. It feels heavy, apart from itself. Only her lungs now do as her mind commands them to.  
With the help of the returning fog, her breathing evens out. The tube hurts, but it is no hindrance anymore. It is merely there. She can breathe. She can breathe on her own accord.  
The hands still coddle her, wait for her to fall asleep again.  
Numbness returns to her body. It is all warm and cosy, and she is not afraid of the dreamless night. She falls asleep. Safe and sound. 

There is another one, another fragment. Wrapped into the warm blanket of waking up, she listens to two female voices. There is laughter, muffled by the fog. And words. It is soothing.  
It feels like a home. The home of a child, who has napped in the presence of its mother and its aunt. There is the notion of being taken care of by loving hands and gentle, happy voices.  
“Twitching,” she hears someone say. She wishes they were a little quieter. “She's been doing that a lot during her dreams lately.” She cannot remember a single dream.  
“Scan says she’s half awake.”  
“She’s been that a lot, too. Doc told us this morning we can prep her for the implant correction.”  
There is singing outside. The singing of birds. She wants to listen to them. She wants to enjoy the warm sunrays tickling her nose in peace.  
“Have you heard? Someone important has announced themself for next week. Bastien wouldn’t tell me who exactly.”  
“It’ll be Alliance command, that much's obvious.”  
For a moment, they leave her to her musings. She decides she likes the sun. Unfortunately, she can never remember the last time she has felt it. She can never remember anything at all.  
What have the two voices talked about? It has been trivial, and it already feels like a distant memory.  
She manages to tip her head a little towards the left, towards the warmth. Contentment spreads through her heavy limbs, through her gut, through her fluttering stomach.  
It still hurts. It all does. Only that now it feels… comprehensible. It is all sore and tender, itchy and healing. She feels fine. The hands and voices will keep her that way.  
The scent of cinnamon and apple-pie whirls through the room. She spends all her attention on it, concerns herself only with it. It is nice.  
After a while, she falls asleep again. This time, on her own accord.

Weeks later, when she wakes at night, she can feel something cold and flat pressed against her feverish forehead. Whatever it is, it warms up to her body's climbing heat.  
It is an uncomfortable pressure.  
The sunrays are gone. The cold has returned, the darkness she can take notice of even from behind her eyelids. The stench of antiseptics finds its way into her conscience for the first time.  
She feels sick. No bile is rising up her throat just yet, but if she could move, she would turn over and empty herself of whatever her stomach wants to rid itself of.  
There is not a single muscle which obeys her command. Only that it does not matter. She is too weak, too exhausted, cadaverous in her existence.  
If it was not for her sticky sweat, for the tremble of her muscles, her shallow breathing, she might as well be dead.  
The tube is back in. It had been gone for a while, before they took her to surgery. She can feel it resting on her tongue. The memory is vague, but she remembers blood spilling from her lips. Dark and searing pain rupturing through her as her circulatory collapsed underneath the pain inside her head. Shivering attacks, cold, blue lips. _One slip and you can’t remember your name._ Her head. They have done something to her head.  
All she can focus on is the need to heave and all she can do is fight the feeling with pain and misery. The warmth and contentment are gone, entirely suffocated by her body’s shutdown. The blasted implant. The blasted surgery to fix it. She used to feel fine.  
There is more pressure against her forehead. The warmed-up metal is not resting lightly against her skin any longer. Instead, it presses her head further into the pillow.  
“It has to be done.” An old voice. Female. Unknown. The words make… sense. Only their meaning stays obscure to her.  
“If Steven was here-“ An outraged voice. Deep. Male. Unknown.  
“Steven has no say in any of it. I’ve put up with his ignorance and missteps long enough. If you have to say anything, speak for yourself and no one else,” the woman growls and although her voice has been thinned by age, its power and weight cause every fine hair on Shepard’s body to rise.  
She tries to open her eyes, but she does not manage. Their leaden weight keeps them closed, no matter how hard she fights it.  
She becomes aware of the mattress beneath her fingers, but her joints refuse to move, too. No part of her can follow her mind’s biding, she is a prisoner inside her own body. And she is a hostage to this conversation.  
“Well then… I don’t agree with capital punishment without a judge.” The man raises his voice to a level which digs deep into her temples. Pulling and tearing pain sears through them and the fog starts to become thicker once again. “Especially not when we all owe her our lives. It’s one thing to strip her of her own name to protect her and the stability of all governments. But it's entirely another to murder her in cold blood.”  
Apart from the shuffling of fabric, there is silence. The pressure on her forehead does not cease.  
She remains at attention; her entire self becomes aware of its survival and its situation. Alive, she is alive and breathing and not ready to let it go yet. She becomes aware of the agony of her body and it has power over her. But it has not driven her insane, not yet.  
There is a threat. A gun, held to her hot skin, ready to release a bullet into her recovering brain. To end its colourful activity. She cannot allow it to happen, no. She wants to live, finally live. She does not want another fight for life and death, cannot take on another battle against a monster. A nightmare which is coming for her, to take her, for good.  
It is reality. The monster is right here, in a room with her. And with it, a single man she does not know, does not care to know. Her survival depends on him.  
“I’m not acting here as the Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance, Abdul. Even a war criminal deserves a fair trial. The people deserve to stand witness to a fair trial. ” The gun is being removed from her forehead and she exhales deeply into plastic as the old woman continues: “I’ve spoken to the doctors. A meningitis has destroyed her paved way to recovery. Right now, in this very moment, she is battling against countless infections, in addition to the overall healing process of her maltreated body. Her immune system is overburdened, even with all the medication they pump into her. In the end, there won’t be much left of her body to accommodate her temper.  
What her life is going to look like would have all of us begging for this mercy.  
Sometimes, it’s not the people lying in a hospital bed who we do a favour when we keep them alive. Sometimes, we are too selfish to let them go. Would you leave it to a vegetating cripple with no movement capability to kill himself?”  
Shepard has no control over her limbs. She can feel the itching and twisting pain in all of them, but not even her toe moves when she tries to curl it. Not even half an inch. It stays as it is. No matter how much she concentrates on it, no matter how hard she tries to get her muscles moving, there is no response.  
A pang of panic arises inside of her as the words of the woman echo inside her head. A cripple, not able to move on her own accord, bound to her bed, dependant on caretakers. It would not be a life. It would be a life as a plant, just as sad and dull and endless.  
Her breath quickens, but not yet enough to alarm the monitoring systems.  
“She has beaten the odds before.” The man speaks words she wishes to be true. Has she beaten the odds before? She does not remember.  
“I’ll indulge you and pretend for a moment she’ll make it. Women like Shepard don’t dwell well in cages. She’ll either wither away like a sad bird and won’t last long, or she'll rebel against our embarrassing decision to rob her of everything in her life. How do you think that’ll turn out for her and us?”  
“She is Alliance. We should give her the chance to understand and accept.”  
“And then you’ll look her in the eyes and shoot her if she won’t? She is out of control. The only reason she has been reinstated - after killing hundreds of thousand of Batarians - is that we threw her at the Reapers.” The woman speaks in a cool and collected voice. Shepard is listening closely, to assert any hint of madness, like she has heard it in so many other voices before. When she does not find it, her stomach turns and spins faster.  
“I won’t stand witness to murder.”  
“I’m not forcing you to be here. But look at her. It’s mercy at this point.”  
“You can’t know that!”  
“No, I can’t. I’m not a prophet. But we have the best doctors here. I listen to their assessment. And I know Shepard. Either way, it’s for the best.” The cold metal returns to her feverish forehead once again. Twitches jolt through Shepard’s body in a pathetic attempt to escape; one of the monitoring systems interrupts the conversation with a sudden sound.  
Underneath her eyelids, she turns her eyes upwards, further and further until the leaden curtain lifts and reveals the light and colours of the world. Her view is trembling and shaking, she has trouble to still her eyes and focus without her eyelids closing again.  
The only light inside the room is the bleak daylight from outside. Most of her fluttery view is being blocked by an arm holding a gun.  
Her breath quickens so much that the systems set alarm. The deep and controlled breathing turns into hyperventilation, primed by her instinct to fight or take flight. Dizziness battles against her will to focus on the woman. No, she will not go down like this, not in a bed, not now, not ever. She will not let that bitch kill her off without having looked her into the eyes.  
Her whole body tenses up and cramps, and her heart rate tumbles into irregularity; around her sounds a choir of noise. Her hyperventilating turns into choking from coughing. Her body is shaking, trembling, fighting. This little act of defiance might cost her life anyway. Her eyes are finally open, and they lock with the grey eyes of the grey-haired woman. No matter what happens to her body, no matter the seizures of her muscles, no matter how deep her fingers cramp around the bedsheets, she stares at the woman with spite.  
Tears of exhaustion spill. It is anger, a wave of old anger rekindled by the injustice brought to her yet again. Another monster which wants to kill her. Another monster which will not succeed. She would rather kill herself with this small act of defiance.  
Nurses and doctors pour into the room. A man dressed in scrubs shouts at the prime minister of the Alliance. They are escorted out of the room by an angry mob of medical personnel.  
Hands hold her down, naked thumbs wipe away her tears, soothing voices mix with the nurses who shout in disbelief and anger.  
She calms.   
Blue eyes framed by heavy lashes look down at her as someone increases the dose of anaesthetic. Miranda. The woman looks nothing like Miranda, but the blue eyes remind her of a similar time in her life. They had cheated death back then. She would be damned if she could not do it again.  
The scene fades out into warm darkness. The last thing Shepard feels is deep satisfaction, rooting in her habit to outlive them all. Like vermin.

####  Kaidan 

“Can you bring her back?” It is a quiet request, made by a mourning man. Even with crutches and an enhanced bone-structure, Joker’s posture reminds Kaidan of Methuselah; too old, too worn out, marked by guilt and loss.  
Tali scans the hardware of EDI’s core. “I don’t know. One wrong line of code and she might be different. I’d feel better if one of her original programmers could help us.”  
“Hasn’t she been optimised with Reaper code? I wouldn’t put it past Cerberus to not even know what they’ve implemented.” Garrus has become so calm in his presence. These are the facts, this is what they will have to work with. The man has changed a lot since their first meeting on the Citadel.  
No one says a word after that. Helplessness paralyzes their tongues. Living on has become nothing but improvisation, just like in times of war. The goals are smaller now, less deadly. Repair the Normandy. Recode programs, jump-start the engines, ration the food. Tomorrow is still far, far away. And closure? Closure lies broken in pieces at their feet. Once the dream of winning has been archived, you are left with the holes the battle has torn into your life.  
“C’mon, Joker. Let’s leave Tali to it,” Kaidan says and pushes himself off the wall. “EDI is in good hands.”  
Joker leaves his head hanging, shakes it before he softly whispers: “You’re right. Just feels like crap to not be able to do something yourself, you know?”

It takes them weeks to get the Normandy back into the air. Fried systems, breaches in the hull, bare wires, errors in the main framework. The blast and the crash have left fewer marks on the ship than expected, but enough to overwhelm a small crew. They have to work with a bare minimum of spare hardware parts for replacements, all while their rations have become heavily limited.  
Kaidan does not mind the work. Liquor is a well-known anaesthetic for grief, and yet, he craves something else. Nothing feels sweeter than the haze of demanding work. If there is only the task at hand, the clear problem with the logical solution, there is no desire to lose himself in a fog of toxin. He craves the calm and deep sleep only heavy, muscle-burning and mind-numbing work can grant him. 18 hours shifts free him of all worries and emotions, leave him with nothing but a reviving mental blackout.  
Chakwas complains because it is her job, but he sees the same philosophy in all the others, too.  
Yet… no matter how much he works, no matter how hard he pushes on and on and on, she is always there, like a ghost haunting the ship and its crew. In every room linger traces and memories of her.  
It is her ship. It feels wrong to take over her command as the highest-ranking Alliance officer. 

He has thought about returning to the staff dorms. It is hard enough to replace Shepard in leadership, but another to occupy her private room in her absence. It has been their shared space on her ship. Not his alone. In the end, it is hers.  
The cold of the steel creeps across his skin whenever he enters it. Has she felt the same during her time with Cerberus? Or has it felt like home?  
Stars and planets pass by; he observes them, lost in thoughts and unmoved by their beauty. Some of them are nothing more than tiny dots on a pitch-black canvas. Others are gigantic, bare orbs reduced to plate-sized decoration by the distance.  
Has she found comfort in the breath-taking view? Or has she felt lonely, like a forsaken explorer adrift among unknown stars in a hostile void?  
Does it differ from how she has described the views to him during their moments together?  
Something he cannot name makes him stay. Perhaps it is the hope that one day soon, they will be reunited. He can almost hear her teasing: “What, you thought a few scratches can kill me? C’mon, Alenko, I’ve expected better of you.” Her eyes will sparkle, and all frowns of worry will be replaced by smiles.  
Yes, it feels wrong to sleep in her room all by himself. This is where him and her have kissed softly, have moaned over early wake-up calls, have shouted at each other over an especially reckless almost-self-sacrifice of hers. And now, he is staring at the void outside, with an unoccupied pillow by his side and with homesickness tightening his throat.   
The Normandy glides through the black sea with incomprehensible elegance. He does not feel or hear a thing as he lies in bed, recovering from a nasty migraine attack. The lights of the fish tank dip the room into a cosy atmosphere, one which is not too harsh on his still sensitive eyes. .  
The memories are fresh, even the ones dating months back. There have not been many moments of privacy during the war. The few memories he has collected are precious gifts he desperately holds onto.  
Sometimes, she has joined him in bed when he had to nap his headache away. Never for too long – duties do not simply go on hold. But sometimes, for a while. .  
It has had something domestic about it: Him, waking up to her presence after the pain has faded. All he had to do was turn over, wrap his arm around her middle and rest his head on her stomach. He did not even think about it, he just did it as he was craving her warmth and her touch. Her hand often slid into his hair, rumpling his bedhead and drawing lazy circles across his nape..  
In those moments, he was in between sleep and being awake. His limbs were heavy and warm. His mind was still so caught up in the nap’s aftermath that the Reapers were forgotten. All that mattered was his drowsiness and her peaceful presence. .  
His fluttering stomach often marvelled that a woman like Shepard has chosen to be with him. He gave himself credit where it was due, sure. But to be loved by the woman of your dreams will never cease to amaze him, especially when she is an emancipated powerhouse with no need for a man in her life.   
She allowed him to snooze nestled against her, and enjoyed the quiet moment with him. She wanted to be there, just like he wanted to be there. Within all the craziness, they managed to find normality together.  
He misses it. To not be able to simply roll over and pull her close. All there is, is an empty space. Her scent is still there, but by now it has begun to fade. He presses his face deeper into his pillow, wraps his arms around the rest of the blanket. While he waits for the migraine to fully fade, there is plenty of time to remember her.   
She will be back. He does not dare to doubt it.  


Shepard is gone from the ship, but she is not gone in her crew’s mind.  
“Is that Shepard’s cheese?” Traynor asks during dinner when she takes a peek into the cupboard. “Do you think she’ll miss it?”  
“Show me,” Cortez says, already seated at the table and too shattered to get up again.  
Traynor holds up a vacuumed piece of cheese from earth. “It’s not mine.”  
“Might be hers.”  
Hesitation. She turns the package in her hands before she asks: “Do you think she’ll mind?”  
“Are you humans always so considerate over the food of people who aren’t even here?” Javik huffs. “If you were starving, would you be asking all these questions?”  
“No, but I’m also not starving.”  
Chakwas shrugs. “I don’t know if she even remembers its existence.”  
“I can always buy a new one…” Apparently still uncomfortable with her decision to eat the cheese, Traynor takes it.  


In the eery quiet at the breakfast table, not a word is said. Although they keep each other company, all of them are alone, lost deep within their thoughts. No one dares to break the silence with hushed whispers.  
Mornings place a weight of fear inside his stomach. “Perhaps,” the cruel voice of pessimism whispers inside him, “it is all forlorn hope. Don’t you feel her absence echoing through you? Have you not said and already known that this last kiss in London was goodbye?”  
Those are mornings to him. When he looks at the others at the table, those are mornings to all of them.  
So, they endure.  


In the moment Shepard’s eyes open, Kaidan kneels on the floor of EDIs core. Neither Tali nor him – especially not him – know if they will ever succeed to restore enough code to preserve EDIs unique personality. The memories are all there. The question is: What will she make of them?  
“How’s it going?” Joker asks over the comm.  
As Shepard’s eyelids struggle to stay open, as her muscles spasm and her breathing hitches, Kaidan replies: “Just give her time, Joker. She’ll make it.”  
Hope is a powerful fuel.


	3. What Matters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey,  
> if you're wondering where Kaidan's part is: I've made the decision to split the chapter because otherwise it'd be a 10k monster. It's already sitting in the drafts, just waiting for me to slam the post button in a few days!
> 
> Things get going in this third chapter. Finally. But it's still a looooong way to go! So tag along on this ride through many, many more paragraphs, scenes and chapters.

####  Shepard

Weeks turn into months.  
The process of waking up is… hard. They tapper off the sedatives. So gradually, the fog inside her head lifts, until she is entirelly aware of her surrounding. With time, she can match the noises, scents and pictures. It is easier when you stop falling asleep while gathering intelligence on the room and the people around you.  
She also becomes aware of how much of a construction site her body really is. To finally comprehend the damage is not pleasant. To always find a new ache, a new sore spot, a new numbness is even less.  
When she looks at her leg, all she can see is the destroyed landscape of Tutchanka. The iodine tints it just as yellow, the scars and dents cause it to look just as sinkhole littered. How is this hurting thing supposed to carry her weight?  
It does not stop there. Naturally it does not. All her extremities are as heavy as concrete, are utterly exhausted. Just like after a long battle. Only that she is thinner now, like a wisp. Instead of sore muscles, there are no muscles left.  
She is always tired. Without so many drugs in her system, she cannot always fall back asleep, not with the constant pain. She refuses to ask for fentanyl or whatever they hand out in state-of-the-art medical facilities these days. She only knows the nasty stuff they keep on Alliance ships; there is no cheaper and faster way to a medical discharge from service.  


The staff is the only anchor for her nerves.  
"It'll be fine. You'll be fine," the nurses and doctors say, sometimes with a smile, sometimes without. She finds it easier to believe them when they do not smile. Both times, it makes her grit her teeth through the pain, persuading herself that it really will be fine one day.  
They are all kind and chatty. Their words are empty, of course. No one ever utters a thing of importance. Still, they try so hard to entertain her, to make her feel like everything is going to be fine. She never hears any news from the outside world from them, not even when she asks, though. And she makes it a point to ask.  
The first time she speaks herself, her voice is coarse and quiet. She is amazed her brain can piece the syllabi together into sensemaking words. But it gets better after a day or two. Sometimes, her grammar is still all over the place, but at least she can tell people to fuck off or can ask them for a glass of water.  


They start to let her train. Not in a real sense, not like she is used to, of course. They mostly work on her mobility with her. Some parts of her limbs still feel detached and numb, but they start to move when she adresses them.  
Even when the nurse tells her to stop and allow her muscles to rest, she waits for him to leave the room so she can push and punish her torn up body into submission. Her everlasting rage burns her patience to the ground, so she beats her own recovery on and on and on.  


The days are not kind to her, and neither are the nights. It is a devastating truth she has to live with.  
Because she remembers the gun. She remembers it all too well.  
To live with the hatred has never been a strength of hers, not when there are no vents to canalise it into. And to be held in the cold, choking grip of injustice, to be pushed around like an inanimate thing, it fuels a flame inside her, one which is unhealthy for any person and consuming for someone tied to a bed.  


There have been no visitors since the last and only ones. Not ever. The disappointment is as bitter as bile. Why does no one make the effort to look for her body? Why is no one questioning her disappearance?  
Or have they chosen to discard her with the rubble now that her purpose is done, and her success has set them up nicely?  
She knows better than this. She should know better. With each endless day of vegetating in boredom and with each infinite lonely night filled with terrors, she starts to forget.  
She has earned their loyalty, their trust. Their friendship. Maybe, just maybe, she should trust in their ability to find her. In the end, she can never trust anyone but herself and the numbers on the vital monitors.  
Hackett does not visit either. But she asks. She asks the staff every day.  
After each person, she asks individually, again and again. She wants to engrave the questions into their minds, wants them to be haunted by her despair. If she has to live with it, the abandonment, the loneliness, the rootlessness, then she wants them to suffer, too. When they are at home, on their comfortable sofa. She wants their after-work beer to taste of guilt to them.  
She can almost feel it, their struggle. But no one breaks.  


Onur sets down the tray with the food. He is a good man, a good nurse. Firm but patient, and always kind.  
Shepard has lost her patience with him.  
“Has the Normandy returned?” she inquires before he has the chance to say a single word. Her eyes, first focused on the sunlit skycars outside, snap away from the window and fixate him. Her stare is intense, and although she is a mere human bound to bed by her injuries, Onur knows she is a predator luring the unwary until she goes for the throat. Hackett had told him once, before her medical examination at the beginning of her arrest in 2185. He had joked, to some extent. The comparison still pleases her anyhow.  
There is a sad smile playing around his lips. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You know the orders.” He seems genuinely sorry and she hates it. It is easier to taunt them when they are cold bastards who try to guard their hearts.  
“Whose orders? Of the woman who’s tried to kill me in my sleep?” She snorts and turns her head away again. “Yeah, fuck her.”  
He does not reply to it. Smart man. She hates him for it. Always so calm, so sweet, with his warm black eyes and his kind-hearted facial features.  
While she is all edged and rough and more than ready to revolt.  
“Today, there’s sweet potato mash, rice and various vegetables,” he says with a more genuine smile echoing in his voice. He opens the cover plate.  
She shakes her head, just slightly. Her gaze is calmer now and there is less poison in her words. She has come up with a stupid idea, a particularly petty one. But there is nothing else she has control over these days. “I won’t eat.”  
“Do you feel nauseous?” the man asks, unaware. “Perhaps a cup of tea will help your stomach settle down.”  
When his frame obscures her view, she looks at him, directly at him, and she almost forces him into eye contact with her stare. “I won’t eat. Not until I know of if the Normandy is safe and not until Kaidan Alenko knows where I am.” An ultimatum. She likes those, she thinks, sarcastically. Especially because they rarely ever work.  
The man sits down on the chair next to her bed. He picks up the fork, stabs a piece of broccoli. “He wants you to get better, not weaker. Your body needs the food.” He holds the fork’s handle into the direction of her hand.  
Hot knots form inside her stomach. Those of the unpleasant kind. “Don’t you dare to play that card.” The emotional manipulation will not work on her. No matter how much the image stings. “You either get him here and let him say that himself or you better shut up about it.”  
“I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine and at loss. Sweet, gentle Onur, who is too soft for this and craves for people to like him. “I shouldn’t have worded it like that.”  
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she chastises, but she sounds flat and defeated.  
Real sunshine lights the Citadel landscape up. Sol’s sun is warm and soothing on her still healing skin. There are even the soft songs of lost birds. Their songs are different from the ones she knows. “And don’t do it again,” she adds quietly, when he does not reply.  
He hesitates. “But you will have to eat. To get better.”  
“And otherwise you’ll force the tubes back in?” She presses her teeth together to keep her despair and hatred for her survival in line. She wants to live. Only that this is not living. She is a prisoner of her injuries and the people at the top, of a medical system and people who care too much and then again, not at all.  
“You need the nutrition.”  
It is enough of an answer. Yes, they would. If she stopped eating, they would ignore her own choice and force her.  
She closes her eyes for a second, to take the moment in. Perhaps it will all be worth it in the end. Nursed back to health, maybe she can stage an escape. How cynic it would be if they had to shoot her to stop her. “I’ll eat later. Not right now.”  
“Okay.” He places the heating cover over the plate by the sound of it. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”  
“Please let someone from the Normandy know I’m still alive. Doesn’t matter who.”  
Silence. The other nurse, Maureen, would have confronted her with the facts again: There are orders, contracts. No one can know.  
Fuck those orders. Fuck Van Dijk, fuck Hackett, fuck the coward nurses, fuck them all.  
“Onur?” Her voice is flat. Being hateful all the time will not get her anywhere. “You’re a good man.” The truth. Yet her timing is calculation. She needs him to stay sympathetic. She craves him to be kind.  
Silence, again. But it feels different. Not as tense, anyway.  
The cutlery and the dishes clutter as he sets them away. “I’ll try and live up to your compliment, ma’am.” She can hear him smiling again.  
“I’m not nice enough to lie about something like that.”  
There is a knock on the door and both of their heads snap towards it. The staff knocks, but only as a formality and a warning. No one ever waits for her to call them in.  
No, this has to be someone else. A visitor.  
Immediately, her blood starts pumping and her heart pounds harder, louder than in battle. It is impossible for her to grasp a clear thought. All there is, is the frantic hope to see her crew again. Anyone of them. She needs to know if they are alright, if they have made it to safety after the blast. Her foot twitches as she tries to sit up. She manages by ignoring the strain in her sore arms as she pushes herself up.  
All she perceives is the door.  
Her mouth is as dry as barren land. Her tongue feels heavy, and she knows that she will mess up if she does not take her sweet time to talk. “Come in!”  
The following seconds are pure agony. In slow motion, she watches the door open after a beep and a hiss of hydraulics.  
When she sees the person behind it, she holds her breath.  
The night is dark again, gone are the songs of the birds. She can almost taste the plastic, can almost feel the warm metal against her skin. A tremor runs through her body and her fingers dig deep into the sheets. The knuckles crack, yet she does not even hear it. Instead, she hears the remnants of voices fluttering across her memory.  
Her teeth press down hard on one another, her jaw muscles tense. She pushes the air through her nose in an angry snort. Back are the colours, the sunlight, the irritation of her hurting limbs. Fuck this.  
All interest in her visitor crumbles into nothingness after the first glance. She wants to look out of the window again, it is all she can do to escape this after all. Yet, the soldier inside her is stronger. She will see this through.  
In her frustration, she lets herself fall back into her mountain of pillows. The boring ceiling has never looked prettier, now that she has something very ugly to compare it to. It is a childish thought, one not worthy of her. It still feels good.  
After a few seconds of pulling herself together, she returns her attention to the well-known stranger.  
“Good afternoon, Madam Shepard.” It is a distinct accent; one she could have lived without hearing once more in her life.  
The prime minister enters the room without reacting to Shepard’s obvious aversion. Her walking cane – which appears to be made of fine wood and noble metal – klicks in union with her heels. Exemplary styled after Alliance regulations, the grey hair is combed into a tight bun and there is almost no makeup to be seen on her. Her awards tinkle with each heavy step. This is exactly how Shepard has always pictured an Alliance prime minister to look like.  
“I don’t care if it’s insubordination, but you are the first name on a very long list of people I don’t want to see.” This woman does not deserve a single second of her time. And whyever she is here, it will never turn out to Shepard’s advantage.  
Van Dijk waves it off like an annoying fly, entirely unimpressed. “The insubordination of the dead doesn’t concern me.”  
“I’m not dead.” The words are faster spoken than overthought. There is… something, deep inside her memories. A clue, but where? Where is it? They would not shoot her in the presence of a nurse. No one is that stupid. No, there is something else, a detail. Not the gun, perhaps something that has been said?  
“Obviously, you aren’t.” The prime minister may as well speak to a child by the sound of her voice. She removes her coat and drapes it over one of the chairs. “However: It’s time to bury the past and embrace a brand-new future. It won’t be easy, not for anyone. And especially not for you.”  
“Get to the point,” Shepard presses through her teeth.  
Van Dijk shifts her attention towards Onur: “Leave us alone for a moment, please.”  
The man freezes in movement. His hands withdraw from the colourful bouquet of flowers on the windowsill. “I’m not allowed to, ma’am.”  
“Because of my last visit?”  
“Yes.”  
“Very well. It’s you who has to live with knowing. Remember your contract.” Van Dijk brushes the flat of her hands over her skirt to straighten it out. Every fold must be neat and tidy. She sits down, as slowly as you would expect from a woman her age. “I don’t mind another pair of ears being witness to this conversation.”  
“Then finally speak.” Shepard is done playing games. Grave concerns tower around her like tombstones. Like ghosts, fears haunt her. Like flies, her hope dies. Despair takes it to its thousand graves.  
Van Dijk reaches for the thermos bottle inside her bag. She takes her sweet time to pour herself some tea into one of the bland, white cups. When she is done, she speaks. Her voice is cool and collected, and the vague sound of a memory jolts through her: “Commander Shepard’s personnel file has been closed and classified. It's the best solution to let your old identity die, regardless of _your_ whereabouts. For your and our safety.”  
It is all business. Nothing but business. This is what they need, so they will take it, no matter if their most prized agent will end up as their roadkill. It never matters in their bigger picture, a picture which is so narrowed down by their blindsight that they do not even see an inch wide.  
Shepard's numb muscles shiver underneath her state of excitation, the strain of her temper. “I assume you won’t tell me why you want me dead?” Her hand fishes for the bed gallows, grips it so hard her knuckles turn pale. Her body has long forgotten the countless sit-ups it has performed in its life. She manages, barely, and it is a feat for her to stay sitting.  
“Commander Shepard. Not you. It’s in our interest to-“  
“You have tried to kill me,” she half-shouts, loudly enough for her untrained voice to crack into hoarseness. “I haven’t forgotten the gun to my head.”  
Van Dijk stays calm, unimpressed even. It is apparent that she is not here to make things easier for her. “I’m 108 years old, girl. I’ve served with the Alliance for 90. Experience is key to my every decision. This includes recognising lost cases when I see them. I'm glad to have been proven wrong and I apologise.”  
“So, it’d only have been an act of pity,” Shepard hisses as she yanks her legs into a cross-legged position. “Cut your bullshit. There’s more to it.”  
“Naturally. Still, I know a woman like you doesn’t fare well in a cage. Especially not when it’s your own body. Five percent. That’s how much of a chance you had to survive. You can imagine the percentage for a life outside a plant-like state.” The prime minister takes a sip from her cup of tea. “And then go lower for each limb. Numbers are cruel, but as the leader of the resistance against the Reapers, you should know.”  
“It’s still my choice to live or die.” She has to remind herself. She has to remind herself because it is so easy to forget when you have seen as much war, as much death, as much blood on your hands as her: “I deserve better.”  
Van Dijk huffs, shaking her head and slamming the cup back onto the table, only to then say in the calmest voice: “It doesn’t matter what you deserve.”  
“It does. You've used me against the Reapers after not listening to me for _years_. And now you to throw me away like garbage! Why?”  
“We’re giving you a new identity, a new life, far away from the crimes you have committed. You can’t deny them. If not for this new chance, we may as well lock you up with ironclad charges for the rest of your life. Is that more to your liking?”  
Shepard must still herself for a second. If she does not regain composure now, she might as well sign her own death sentence by lashing out. She is not worth more than a scapegoat on the execution block. This old hag will try and drain her for all her blood. “The galaxy won’t stand for that.”  
“It won’t look kindly to you, either, girl. You’ve made enemies, plenty of them. Some may support you, but others will try and tear you down, quick. Their attention will never leave you. Not once. Think of me what you will, but this vote to strip you of your identity, it’s the vote of the entire admiralty board. For your protection and that of the Alliance.”  
Shepard’s breath hitches. She can hear the blood rushing through her ears, can feel the anger sting in her temples and veins. Her heart pounds against her rib cage, so loud everyone else in the room might hear it. “All I’ve ever wanted was to survive. I wanted to survive the Reapers, so I pushed. You can’t hold that against me because it’s all which stood between us and losing the war. You can’t call me dangerous to the Alliance, not because of that.”  
“The decision hasn’t been made without a cause. The notorious ignoration of even the smallest regulations like fraternization, the reckless behaviour harmful to yourself and others by stunts like the one you’ve pulled in the backstreets of the Zakera ward, the abuse of position with political gambits,... There are many, many more reasons to keep you from any kind of service. You’ve disgraced yourself and us by playing an arrogant mercenary who knows better than the rest of the galaxy.” Van Dijk slams the flat of her hand onto the table. The cutlery and dishes chink. The woman seems angry, truly angry. She has trouble hiding it behind her perfect façade. That much is obvious.  
But so is Shepard. “I’ve saved the entire galaxy, so yes, perhaps I knew better than all of you! You haven’t believed my reports on the Reapers.”  
“Your sacrifices, your bravery and your success will be honoured accordingly. I’ll see to that and I’ll even thank you personally for it until the rest of my life. You were right about the Reapers. But putting everything on hold to elevate Aria T’Loak back into her seat of power?”  
“I am a Spectre. Don’t you ever forget that.” Shepard emphasizes every single word. Her words are a threat and are meant as one. She is a Spectre. It does not matter whether they would give her the status once again. But being a Spectre is a testimony to skill. Spectres aren’t trained but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle. They cannot take that from her.  
“I won’t bring you to book for all you’ve done. It merely shows me what kind of a woman you are. Impulsive. Guided by a towering temper. Questionable loyalty, no qualm to go on a killing spree if _you_ deem it necessary. You bulldoze over everything and everyone if they’re in your way. So long as you have a gut feeling that something might not be right, you tip the entire balance. It’s why we won’t let you play any longer.”  
“You’re afraid of me.”  
Van Dijk does not reply to this. She opens her omnitool, plays a recording: _“Everything will change. But on our terms.”_ Miranda. Her last call to Miranda.  
Shepard’s blood freezes. So, this is the foundation of her death sentence. This is why they fear her, why they want her to be gone, why someone has put a gun to her head. She tips the balance. She has too much power. They do not trust her.  
It is time to drop her, so they do it.  
Shepard presses her fingers to her lips, stopping her thoughts from spilling. All blood leaves her face. Too cocky. Too trusting that they would not stab her in the back. That they would greet her with open arms instead of seeing her as the new threat.  
“Miss Lawson has been a known terrorist for over a decade. She was one of the most trusted agents of the Illusive Man. I know you trust her. She’s changed. But she’ll have to answer for her crimes, even when you might think she has redeemed herself. We can’t let you play jury, judge and executioner, girl. It’s why the board has voted: Commander Shepard’s death is decided and pronounced. To stop you from interfering.”  
“You’ll need to leave,” Onur suddenly says. He is not so gentle with his voice, not so kind. He leaves no room for refusal. He takes Van Dijk’s walking cane, hands it to her, alongside her bag. “The stress isn’t good for her. If the implant is triggered too early, we won’t get around another surgery.”  
Shepard panics. This is perhaps her only chance to get answers, and she has wasted it by arguing for her fucking identity. Like this is the thing which matters. “No, wait!” she shouts when the prime minister stands up and picks up her coat from the chair beside her. “What about my crew? What about them? Are they alright?”  
“I’ve heard word the Normandy has announced their arrival for this afternoon. It appears like the majority of your crew has survived the journey.”  
“Can I see them? I don’t care about my name or my career. But can I see my crew?” She is so quick to beg for this. If the galaxy will ever see her on her knees, then for these people, for their safety and her love for them. They cannot take them from her, too. Then, Van Dijk might as well have killed her instead.  
Van Dijk does not reply. Instead, she throws one last gaze at Shepard. She cannot read it, cannot understand its implication. Cannot understand but feel. It is a refusal, a means to string her along. A pressure-point.  
Without another word, the prime minister disappears through the door. Out of sight, but never out of thought.  
“Please!” she shouts, begging that Van Dijk will come back and tell her. But she does not. The room is suddenly empty but for her.  
What does this mean? Will she stay here, alone, cut off, for the rest of her life? Will they even take this from her, the only people who she cares about in this entire galaxy? Will they take her love from her, her friends?  
No one is here with her to share her trouble, her grief, her confusion and anger and hate and despair. The cocktail is deadly, is fuming violently inside her. Fermenting, it is bubbling towards her surface, potent enough to explode.  
Yet, there is nothing. Nothing but petrification as she is sitting there in bed, staring at the closing door, left alone, left to rot inside her cage.  
Shepard does not cry, cannot cry. The thought of losing everything and everyone in her life by high command’s decree is so absurd, so surreal, it cannot be true.  
But this is it, is it not? Her life, in shambles. Once again.


	4. It goes by the name of London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! May 2021 be kinder to us. 
> 
> It's Kaidan's turn, yay!  
> I haven't decided yet if I prefer having both PoVs in one chapter, or if I like alternating between them in separate chapters better. So... stay tuned for my messy chapter management. :D

####  Kaidan 

Cold hands, cold feet, lightheadedness, and a particularly nasty itch inside his muscles; nervousness always feels like this. Unfortunately, his annoying back-and-forth rocking on his heels and toes does not warm him up in the slightest. One cup of strong coffee, Kaidan muses, and he might simply faint on the spot.  
The anxiety also leaves a fuzzy taste inside his mouth, just like his departure to brain camp did so many years ago. It was an exciting journey, one filled with the natural curiosity of wanderlust-striken teens and the valid fear of barely-not-kids-anymore young adults, who had no idea when - no, if - they would see home ever again. To see space for the first time, to be confronted with its endless darkness and beauty… it was a lot.  
Kaidan waits in line for border control. There is not much to do beyond training his patience, so he has no means to stop the memories from twirling through his mind. It feels the same, yes. Like when he was on his trip to brain camp. Only this time, he is not afraid of leaving. He is afraid of coming home.  
Is his father alive? Has Shepard made it? Is his mother well? What is the world like out there?  
While waiting, he is suddenly confronted with every thought he has swallowed down throughout the past months.  
He shivers. He needs to get off board, needs to do _something_ instead of standing around, waiting, _dying_ from Schrödinger’s torture. As long as he is standing here, utterly pointlessly, Shepard could be waiting outside, or she could be in a hospital or she could be dead. He has no way of knowing.  
He fiddles with his datapad. Search and Reconnection Program for Missing Kin has sent him a message. At least his mother is alright, at least she is somewhere out there, waiting for him to come home. Once the Normandy has been whipped through customs and handover to Alliance inspection, he is going to call her. He has to let her know that he is alive and well. He cannot imagine the suffering she had to go through these past months.  
While Kaidan refreshes the message system for the 300th time within the past 30 minutes, he exhales deeply in a forlorn attempt to calm himself down.  
Garrus stands in front of him, calm and entirely unimpressed by Kaidan’s continuing fidgeting and hyperactive rummaging inside his bag. Obviously, earth is not the end of the Turian’s journey; from here, he will have to wait for a transport to Palaven. This layover is just another loop of waiting and keeping busy.  
Perhaps this is why he is not as anxious to finally leave the Normandy. Or is it just Kaidan who is standing in this swamp of impatience and fear? How can literally anyone else look so calm?  
“You think she’ll be here?” The question leaves Kaidan’s mouth before his higher self can stop him. He has to talk. Has to get this off his chest. He needs to fill his mind with something else than just his own thoughts. Their loops are beginning to turn into a noose.  
She. There is no need for clarification. “Shepard? Yeah, you never know with her.” Garrus’ reply is neither a yes nor a no. Kaidan has to blame himself: He should have gone to Tali or Traynor for a reassuring reply.  
“Yeah, right,” he says and sighs. The queue moves along slowly but steadily. As the commanding officer, he will be the last to leave the ship, apart from crew members like Adams and Traynor, who are still needed aboard for the inspection and repair.  
He looks at the border officer again. He would rather be watching the landing zone from the Normandy’s observation deck instead of standing in this tube-like hallway made of metal and plastic. This is the perfect place to drive himself into a migraine attack, with all the neon lights and the over-stimulation of his senses.  
After another half an hour, it is finally his turn.  
“Welcome home, Major Alenko,” the private says and salutes.  
His thoughts flutter away with the howling of the British wind outside. “At ease, soldier. It’s good to be back.”  
A check of his identity, of his documents and orders are conducted. Nothing more, nothing less.  
“Flight-lieutenant Moreau said you’re currently the one in command of the Normandy SR-2?” the private half states and half asks.  
“I’m the XO, yes.” Like it needs clarification. Everyone knows the SR-2 is Shepard’s ship, even during the brief period of Anderson’s takeover of the Normandy as his command centre. He wonders if Shepard has made a fuss about it after they had told her.  
“Hackett will want a debrief asap. They’ll tell you more at the terminal 25. I’m just here to send you there.”  
“Alright, thanks. I'll leave you to it, then.” He gives the young man a nod before he joins Vega at the door.  
“You ready?” the lieutenant asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “The world’s waiting.”  
“Yeah.” He throws his duffel bag over his shoulder. “It better is.”  
He follows Vega into the cloudy sunshine of London. Finally, the tepid air of the spaceship is replaced by cold, fresh wind. The salty breeze ruffles through his hair, but he does not mind it a bit. No, he quite enjoys earth’s breath brushing his skin after so many weeks of no real air, no real sunshine.  
He was surprised to learn that all ships and resources are being centralised where the Reapers had hit the hardest, but once he has left the shadow of the Normandy, he sees exactly why: Even between the grey clouds, he can see the Citadel’s base sending its beam to somewhere in London’s rubble. He has to stop in his tracks for a moment, to take its sight in. What will this mean for humanity?  
When he looks past the enormous space station and further towards the horizon, he is baffled by how close the metropole of London is. Even from here, he can see the ruins and battlefields, but also the stubborn remnants of an undefeated place of life.  
“You gonna talk to those media people over there?” Vega asks and nods into the direction of the landing zone’s ancient barb wire fence. Indeed, there is not only a group but a crowd of people watching and documenting the Normandy’s return.  
Kaidan laughs quietly. Him and talking to nosy journalists? “I know better than that. You?”  
The lieutenant shudders. “Hell no.”  
“Terminal 25?”  
“Terminal 25.”  
Being around Vega makes him calm down a bit. With the greatest ease, the lieutenant radiates a mood of celebration and euphoria over their survival. The man not only enjoys life but worships it.  
Kaidan allows himself to be swept into a light conversation about possible postings as they cross the landing zone.  
“Who knows, they might even make you General,” Vega says with a shrug. “You’re already a Spectre, so why not give you a promotion, too?”  
“Yeah, let’s see about that. Being good at following my Commander’s orders doesn’t make me a good leader for whole armies. Besides, I’d have to make it to Colonel first.” General Kaidan Alenko. He has always been a career man, but… he will have to trust his superiors on it. “What about you? Commander?”  
“Nah, N7 first. Everything else can wait.”  
“Never thought you to be someone who’d keep something big like that a secret.” Kaidan gives him an energetic pat on the shoulder. “Congrats, man! You’ll do great there.”  
“I would, if my mentor was showing up. Chingar, she’s the only reason I had the cohones to accept.” Vega glances over the rim of his sunglasses. “Can’t do it without her nightmare prep-drills.”  
“Surviving those always makes me think I can survive literally anything else, too.”  
“Maybe that’s the point.”  
When they arrive at terminal 25, they are the only ones in line. Un-ceremonially as always, Vega drops his datapad onto the table of the coordination officer. “You need anything else?”  
The officer reads James’ details. For a second, he looks up at its owner, but when he notices Kaidan’s attention, immediately averts his gaze again. “No, no, this is fine... Lieutenant James Vega, assigned to the Normandy SR-2, reporting to Commander Shepard. And… looks like you already have an upcoming order? N1, report to the Vila Militar in Rio de Jainero as soon as possible.” The officer transfers some documents to the datapad before he hands it back again. “And Sir? Thank you for saving all our asses. It’s an honour.”  
“Yeah, it’d do it all over again if it meant not working a desk job. Seems like you’re the hero of these times now.” Vega turns around to Kaidan. “You want me to wait?”  
“You go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”  
“Alright, I’mma gonna go ahead and see if the folks over there are already set up again or if I’m really gonna take a vacation at your place. See you somewhere outside!”  
“Yeah.” Kaidan fishes for his own datapad somewhere inside his bag and turns to the officer. “So, uh… are many ships back? Or is the majority still out there?”  
“Can’t say, sir. But we’ve got a steady income of ships these days.” The man takes a look at his details. “Major Kaidan Alenko, assigned to the Normandy SR-2, reporting to Commander Shepard and to Admiral Hackett. Biotic Division. Spectre.” He swipes further. “XO of the Normandy, currently in command. Which means…” Some document transfers from another datapad to his. “Debriefing with Hackett, scheduling now… There you go. This afternoon at 1615 o’clock.”  
“In less than an hour? That’s not enough time for a protocol landing and clearance.” There are tons of paperwork to sign, transportation needs to be arranged, the local safety officers and the repair team have to be briefed, they have to register all alien passengers, tec and goods with Alliance customs, the requisition officer will need to have a look, and who knows what else needs to be done. The worst part about it all: He has never done this before in all his years of service. He is a marine, not navy.  
“Authorisation has been transferred to Chief Engineer Adams.”  
Internally, Kaidan’s sense for order whimpers in despair. With Adams as the Normandy’s representee, everything is going to be fine, but he just _knows_ that within the chaos of command, pieces of communication will get lost at some point. Externally, he keeps his cool and picks his datapad up. “I assume Hackett wants me to meet him at the UK HQ?”  
“Yes, sir. And thank you, too, sir, for having saved us all.”  
He has no idea what to reply to that, so he simply nods. The datapad disappears inside his bag as he asks: “Hey, where can I hand in an inquiry on missing kin?”  
“The Search and Reconnection Program is located at the righthand side of the port, close to public transport. You’ll want to come back first thing tomorrow, though. The queue is quite long in the afternoons.”  
He swallows hard. “Thanks. Take care, alright?”  
“You, too. And thank you again. You’re all heroes.”  
Kaidan smiles at the man, but his thoughts are already too far away for him to feel humbled or honoured. As he walks through the mostly empty spaceport, he is almost back in 2183, after the destruction of the Normandy. Right before the rescue team opened the last escape pod – Joker’s escape pod – he had prayed and begged for Shepard to be in there. Now, he is at the verge of praying, too.  
It is his gut which is entirely convinced that she will be waiting in the arrival hall. His sanity knows that there is little to no chance for it to be real. It is still not entirely impossible, though, so if he concentrates on it he can even coax himself into believing it for the moment being. It is possible that she is here. It is entirely possible that he might pull her into his arms in a few minutes. He might see her again, alive and well. He might finally wake up from these many years of a nightmare.  
He will kiss her, softly. He will press his lips to hers like he has so many times before, but this time, it will not taste of finitude and goodbyes. It will be just them, people with a future and finally the gut to stand by their relationship. If he does not return to the Normandy, it is not fraternisation.  
He feels lightheaded, just like before a wave of migraines. His vision is clear but still, the world seems a little unreal and fuzzy as he hastens through the hallways.  
In the arrival hall, he sees Vega and Cortez. Garrus and Liara are both staring at the destination boards, Tali has found a group of Quarians. Other crewmembers are still there, too, waiting for others, arranging their accommodation or departure from London.  
But Shepard is not here. Needless to say, she is not. His heart sinks when realisation hits him, all while his common-sense whispers “told you so”. Weeks and months of hope she would be at the airport crumbles into dust. His entire mood drops, and he feels tired out from the long journey. Disappointment's bitter taste laces his tongue.  
Perhaps Hackett knows more. Kaidan wants to believe it, has to believe it, for his sanity. Hackett will have answers for him about what has happened to her. In half an hour, he will know with certainty.  
It is the only thing which keeps him going for now.  
He joins Garrus and Liara, to say goodbye. He would rather carve out some time and celebrate with them at a bar. But if this is what Alliance command demands and if it gets him news on Shepard…  
“There might be a transit to Palaven in half an hour,” Garrus says. “Tali and I will be on our way again. Don’t feel like waiting five days for the next one.”  
“Yeah, sure. Do you have any news from your family?”  
“They’re safe. Cipritine doesn’t look too good though, so there’ll be more than enough to do.” Garrus moves his mandibles and Kaidan assumes it represents something like relief over his family's survival. At least if he has read the tone in the Turian’s voice correctly.  
“Let me know if we can help somehow.”  
“Appreciated. And Kaidan? Don’t be a stranger and let us know when you get any news. Both from your family and Shepard.”  
He nods and takes a deep breath. He will miss Garrus’ stoic attitude. Hell, who will ground him from now on?  
It is Shepard who has brought them together and it might only be Shepard who is still holding them together, now that they all part ways. But it will make them prevail, Kaidan hopes. In a few months’ time or in a year, when they all meet again, it’ll feel just like old times. No matter what will become of them as a crew and friends in the meantime.  
He turns towards Liara. “What about you? Any plans?”  
“My equipment is still on the Normandy. Maybe, if Shepard takes command again, I might join the crew. I can help my people best if I am well informed and coordinate the information flow. For now, I’ll have to look for accommodation on earth.” Her voice always reminds him of gentle waves. Nonetheless, there is a scratch inside it. Something which takes the calm from her.  
“If you need a place, just hit me up, okay?”  
Liara smiles and shakes her head. “You know who else needs a place to stay, right?”  
Javik. “Well, can’t say my Mom will be thrilled, but…” Kaidan turns around to look at the last Prothean – who studies a map of London a few steps away from them – and shrugs. “We’re friends, you and me. And she’d be delighted to meet you.”  
She gently touches his arm. “Thank you. I’ll think about it. It means a lot, Kaidan.”  
“Just let me know. Joker will stay with Chakwas, by the way. Not that she’s giving him much of a choice. My point is, if you need access to the Normandy, he might be the best go-to-guy. Traynor and Adams, too.”  
“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?”  
“Just… find her, please. If you can. I’m heading off to a meeting with Hackett now, perhaps he knows more.”  
Garrus picks up his bag and he looks at Kaidan. “Let us know,” he says.  


It is a quick goodbye to everyone.  
“I’ll see if I can come up with more code we can use for EDI,” Tali promises and pulls him into a hug.  
“Eh, major. If you’re ever bored, you can come visit me at my new hogar. Even the second human spectre can use some slogs.” First, a fist to the upper arm and then colliding shoulders in a manly hug. “Isn’t that right, Esteban?”  
"No one wants to share your self-inflicted hell, Vega." Cortez shakes his head before he turns to Kaidan. "Take care, major. And remember: I still have to win my shirt back from you in a round of poker." Speaking with Javik is odd as always, but oddly friendly: “Until we meet again, human.”  
It leaves him with just enough time to organise a skycar and navigate through the traffic chaos of London.  
He has heard about the famous traffic jams, but there is an entirely different time-consuming situation brewing outside. At first, he is surprised when spaceport staff insists on escorting him to his vehicle. Why would they? Inside the port, there is only military personnel. Kaidan has noticed the looks, but everyone has gone about their business.  
Outside, no one goes about their business. Even though the landing pad still belongs to the military, people are waiting. Apparently, everyone and their grandmother has caught wind of the SSV Normandy SR-2’s return, including not only a crowd of press but an even bigger crowd of curious bystanders, who appear to see this as a once in a lifetime event.  
Kaidan has faced husks, Asari commandos, banshees, Cerberus infiltrators, Krogan mercenaries and heretic Geth. He has fought for his life and the lives of his squad, sometimes for days. No matter how high his adrenaline and cortisol levels are during battle, no matter how hard the fight or flight mode kicks in, like every good soldier, Kaidan knows how to keep a cool head in dangerous situations, no matter the enemy.  
He has no idea how to handle _this_.  
If it was not for the other officers, the torrent of people would swash towards him. He can hear their questions all layered on top of each other in a vortex of vibrating noises. Flashlights dance across the concrete of the floor, across the glass of the tinted windows, across his skin as he is walking towards the skycar. Is he supposed to stop and talk to them? He has no idea.  
How does Shepard handle situations like this? He remembers her back in 2185, when she was in custody for blowing up the mass relay. The first time she set foot on earth, there was a sea of reporters and onlookers. Everyone was looking at the woman in handcuffs, no one missed even the tiniest movement of hers. Kaidan was watching, too, like the rest of the galaxy. There were broadcasts of it everywhere on the extranet, and each of them was sporting an even more sensation-hungry headline than the other. There was no way for him to escape it.  
He remembers her walking. That was all she did. There was no look to the left nor to the right. Instead, she marched straight like she was walking the catwalk of a fashion show. Like there was no Vega holding her arm in an iron grip. Like there were no reporters and a billion questions shouted her way.  
So, he tries to mimic her. The questions will not be running away for a very long time, and it is better to stay in control of them instead of walking blindly into one trap after the other.  
He can only relax after he sits in the driver’s seat of the skycar, with all doors shut and the engine starting up. It takes a moment for him to calm and take a deep breath. He will definitely leave the media work to Shepard. No way he will ever face the hungry mob himself.  
He uses the time in the car to finally dial up his mother’s number. It will be good to hear her voice again. He cannot imagine what she had to go through since the beginning of the war.  
If she will pick up straight away. Gosh, he hates it when people don’t. It is so much easier to leave voice memos or even a text message.  
He listens to the inauspicious beeping as he steers the skycar into the air and waits for his turn to merge with the traffic. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Sev- There is crackling in the line as his omnitool automatically tries to establish a secure and a stable extranet connection.  
Kaidan stops breathing for a second as he waits for the call to come through. Over half a year. This is how long he has not spoken with his mother.  
_“Wèi.”_ Not a single syllabus more. She probably has no idea it is him.  
“Mom? Hey, it’s me, Kaidan.” There is a smile sneaking into his face. It feels good to call her. It is a relief.  
_“Kaidan? Kaidan, is that really you? António, do you hear? It’s Kaidan!”_ She does not even pause for him to say something. _“We were so worried. I was so worried. Say, are you okay? Where are you? Do you want me to come and get you? Are all your limbs still attached to your body? I hope you were careful out there. Uncle António is here, by the way. I don’t know if you can hear him in the background. Say, darling, how are you? Are you home?”_  
He has to chuckle over the brimming excitement of his mother. He loves her for it, for her doting personality and her never-ending energy to talk. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m in London, on my way to the HQ for a debriefing. I'm planning to come home tomorrow morning. Are you in Vancouver?”  
_“No, no, I’m still at the orchard. Vancouver is a mess, and I haven’t had the heart to go there on my own. We can go together some time.”_  
“Yeah, I’d like that. We can take our time. Say, uh… is Dad with you?” The question alone gets his heart to pound into his throat. He even almost misses a turn because of it.  
His mother exhales audibly. _“He… there hasn’t been anything official. I can’t tell you for sure.”_  
Kaidan turns on the warning light before he descents onto a private parking. He has expected the worst. Being MIA during a war against the Reapers, in perhaps Vancouver, of all places, while not being in top condition… He rubs his temples and gathers himself. There might never be something official. Who knows with all these husks? “I’ll try and see if I can get more information with my access.”  
_“Thank you, Kaidan. It’s… you can probably imagine how it is.”_  
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He leans the back of his head against the backrest and stares at the ceiling. Shit. “I’m glad you’re okay, Mom. Physically, anyway.”  
_“You’re okay and you’re home. That’s all which counts for now. So, tomorrow afternoon, Vancouver airport?”_ She plays strong, but he can hear she is not okay. How could she? How can anyone after what they all have lived through?  
“Yes. I’ll send you the details once I know.” He forces himself to smile so she can hear it in his voice. There is no point in goading each other into worry and grief. “I might bring guests, by the way. Two friends from the Normandy. Aliens.” His mother has never been off world, so her contact with real aliens can be counted with less than five fingers. Maybe that will take her mind off things for a bit. “One of them is Liara T’Soni, a very famous Asari archaeologist. And the other one is someone she’s dug up.”  
_“Kaidan!”_ his mother chastises, probably not believing his words to be true. _“Who would she have dug up?”_  
“Well, Shepard and I have helped, kind of. He’s a Prothean. We found his stasis pod.”  
_“What? Is it the one from the vids?”_  
Now, Kaidan has to truly laugh. If his mother’s first impression of Javik stems from vids on the extranet, this will be fun in the most awful way. “Yes.” He takes a look at the time. If he hurries, he can make it on time. “Mom, listen, I need to go now, okay? See you tomorrow.”  
_“Always so busy. Take care, yes?”_  
“I will.”  
He tries to ignore the lump inside his throat. His dad... He should not have gotten his hopes up.  
Caught up in a haze, he manages to get back on the road.  
The UK Alliance Headquarters are – transitionally – situated within one of the more impressive skyscrapers. He is surprised to see it still standing, but perhaps the Reapers simply had not known what to do with this weirdly shaped horror of a glass gherkin. The building is over 180 years old... Who deems it worth maintaining over all this time?  
The landing area is a nightmare in itself; there is a tiny space at the top of the building for official transport, but parking is somewhere on the ground, in between other buildings. He wonders how many learning pilots have sweated through their shirts while navigating through the centuries old, traditional, majestic buildings and this shiny glass monster of a skyscraper.  
Fortunately, there is not a single soul on the parking deck as he leaves the car and walks towards the entrance. He enjoys the quiet, the solitude before the storm.  
The officer at the entrance desk gives him a bright smile and an enthusiastic salute. She is young, very young. Perhaps only in her late teens. “What can I do for you, sir?” He wonders where she has been during the war and if she has enlisted before or after it. Rural home, he assumes. Enlisted after. No one else would be so enthusiastic.  
“At ease, private.” He swings his omitool across the registration chip. “I have an appointment with Admiral Hackett in three minutes.”  
She forms a silent ‘Oh.’ with her lips and turns towards her screen. “Yes, I can see that, sir. 39th floor, room 24. The elevator is just around the corner. Is there anything else I can do for you?”  
“No, thanks.” He gives her a smile before he turns to leave.  
He is barely around the corner when she calls out: “Wait! You’re Kaidan Alenko, the second human spectre!” Her voice is an odd mixture of a squeal and hoarse astonishment. She might be the first human ever to have created this particular sound.  
For a second, he debates to stop and enter an awkward conversation. In the end, he simply does not have the time, and he is infinitely glad about it.  
Inside the elevator cabin, there is no one else who could bother him during his ride to the top. A piece of quiet.  
He tugs at his uniform, brushes it straight with his hands, runs his fingers through his hair to get any loose strand back in place. It is easier to survive the wait like this.  
Just a few more seconds. Then he might know if Shepard is okay. Maybe she will even be there. It is unlikely, but maybe, just maybe, if god is kind… he has not really thought about god in years, he has not gone to church in decades. He might not deserve to be heard by a higher power, but Shepard deserves to be saved. If there is a god…  
For a change, it is easy to find Hackett’s office. Kaidan remembers the many hours he has wandered Arcturus station in his life, in a desperate attempt to find the admiral upon request.  
While his heart pounds, while his stomach turns and his hands and feet turn cold again, it is almost blissful to fall into autopilot. As a soldier, you function. As a significant other, you worry, till death.  
When he enters the room, the fleet admiral turns around from looking outside the window. Kaidan salutes without even thinking. Because this is how things work.  
“At ease, major. Report.”  
“The SSV Normandy has reported in and is now submitted into maintenance. The ship has experienced major damages, but she is spaceworthy and a skilled, professional team might be able to undo all damage. The crew is complete, apart from the commanding officer commander Shepard, who is MIA since the last push towards the beam in London.” It is easy to report. Less concentration on implications, more focus on cold, hard facts. He can do that, even when he does not like it.  
“Good. We can always need a good ship like the Normandy.” Hackett points at the chair in front of his desk with his hand. “Please sit. And help yourself to some tea or water.”  
“Thank you, sir.” Kaidan has never been much of a tea drinker, but he has heard it can do wonders for the nerves if it is not black tea. So, he takes a cup, pours himself some tea and is met with his typical, personal luck: A very British earl grey tea. If he believed in omen, this would probably be a very bad one.  
He sits down with the cup tightly held in his cold hands, nevertheless. “Do I have permission to speak freely?”  
“Speak whatever you like, major.” Hackett sits down, too. To Kaidan, it seems like the man has aged another decade, at the very least. A won war is never the end. The clean-up is just slightly less ugly. When you piece it all back together, somehow. Even if it does not fit together anymore.  
“Are there any news on Shepard?” Kaidan asks and his grip around his cup tightens. This is the moment. His last chance before he has to wait and pray again.  
The fleet admiral moves his head from one side to the other, and back again. He is not sure. Either over how much he wants to tell Kaidan or if there is any reliable information. “I know for certain they have Anderson in a freezer down in the morgue. It’s all very classified, not even I know much about it. There was another corpse down there. Male. That’s all they’ve told me.”  
Anderson. Dead. Deep inside, he already knew, but to hear it, to have it confirmed… It will be hard to deal with that one, once he is not sitting in front of a superior officer anymore.  
“But why is all this classified? And why are they keeping you out?” Kaidan tries to understand, he really does, but his brain just cannot wrap around the secrecy. Why this again? The Reapers are destroyed, so why hide anything of it? Especially from someone like Hackett?  
“I don’t know. Maybe something has happened up there which they don’t know how to handle yet. Cerberus was involved with the relocation of the Citadel into the Sol system, so maybe the other corpse has something to do with it. There are a thousand sensible reasons to not shout it all into public.”  
“You’re not the public, sir.”  
Hackett places his hat on top of his desk. Somehow, he does not seem concerned. “It’s likely standard procedure. I’ve been barred from everything concerning Cerberus. To be honest, I’m glad it’s someone else’s mess to fix for a change. Merle Van Dijk – our new prime minister – is a rigid and ancient warhorse. Does everything by the books, to keep democracy clean. By handing Shepard the Kenson case while she was still with Cerberus, I haven’t done my integrity a favour, so Van Dijk's keeping me outside the line of fire.”  
“But what about Shepard? It doesn’t sound like she’s in the morgue, too.” Please, if there is a higher power out there, please do not let her be in a morgue.  
“We know Shepard has been up there, too. Whatever she did up there, it’s likely connected with whatever the board is panicking over. With her past Cerberus involvement, her motives might be ambiguous at best, so the reconstruction of the events may take a while. I can imagine they’ll ask you and Lieutenant Vega to give reliable statements. Maybe that’ll clear things up a bit.”  
Likely. Maybe. May. Not the words Kaidan was hoping for. “Where is she then? In a prison? A hospital? Dead? Is there anything you know?” He is desperate. This conversation is leading nowhere and everywhere. She could be dead, or they might drag her to court again or… In the eyes of his one-year-younger self, it would make sense, he would not question it. The board is very quick to classify things. To him now, the pieces do not fit together anymore. He knows Shepard. Knows her loyalties and her way of operating. She is a spectre, goddamnit. She should be walking free. In dubio pro reo.  
Hackett leans back in his chair. His fingers tap onto the armrest while he takes some time to think. “If you had asked me if she’s dead straight after the blast, I’d have told you yes. It sounded like she collapsed heavily wounded. But without a body and because it’s Shepard, I won’t believe it until they’ve found her, dead or alive.”  
“What’s…” Kaidan’s voice is hoarse. He clears his throat, also to buy himself some time. To formulate what he would like to know into a comprehensible question. “Do you have some advice for me, sir? On how to handle this?”  
“If they truly investigate her and they ask you, don’t go into detail until they specify their questions. Don’t get involved. Leave that to Vega and the others. Trust them to trust her.  
Alliance command has chosen to overlook your relationship with her. It's not like they can do anything about it anyway. The consequences are on Shepard's head. Nevertheless, they know your potential and after such a war, it doesn’t matter if you’ve slept with your commanding officer or if you wanted to marry her.  
But if you get reckless or even just emotional while defending her, someone might bring it up. Van Dijk will have you recused, and the public is known to dig deep. Both will have unnecessary repercussions on you.” The man’s gaze is intense enough for Kaidan to feel like he is trying to engrave the words into his mind. _Let someone else handle this, or you’ll go to the dogs._ The media would probably have him for breakfast and dinner if they ever found out during an ongoing investigation.  
Kaidan nods. Takes time to think again. It is easy to think about a lengthy investigation into whatever Alliance command is scared of this time. It would mean she is alive and will face it with her usual grace and survivalism. They could get her out of it and then… If he does not return to the Normandy, no one will care if he marries her and takes her with him to Vancouver to build a life together.  
But there are other possibilities. Other scenarios. Most of them not so kind. “What if she turns up, but it’s… she’s not…” He sighs and looks at Hackett. “You know what I mean.”  
“Then you’ll keep going. Like all of us. And if you think you can’t do it, find yourself a reason to do it anyway. Hell, get yourself professional help, travel the world, become a shoemaker for pointe shoes. Whatever it takes. You’ll keep going, do you hear me?”  
_You’ll keep going, do you hear me?_  
The word echo inside Kaidan’s head, even when he leaves the building. He has kept going, after the Normandy SR-1. He has dragged himself through the years, with an enormous weight pulling him down at night, time and time again. All until she welcomed him back onto her ship with open arms and an open heart. He cannot go through that again. He cannot reclaim his life for the third time, not after all this.  
So, all he can do now is force himself into believing the investigation theory. He will have to find out where she is, and he will find her. He will.  
No matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, good luck with that, Kaidan. You'll need it. Man, you'll definitely need it.


End file.
